


Nothing; Everything.

by MaevesChild



Series: Fusion Core [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Military Bullshit, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-22 07:52:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6071193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaevesChild/pseuds/MaevesChild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danse knows what he is now.  He has no idea what to do about it, or about her.  He can't tell which is worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scared Right to Hell

She saved him, but he wasn’t sure if he was glad or not.  She told him he was human, at least to her, and it felt good to hear her say it even if he knew it was a lie.

Danse didn’t understand how he had feelings at all, except that he knew he did.  He always did.

If he thought about it, he could pinpoint the moment when his actual memories began. The ones that were programmed into him seemed hazy by comparison.  Yet, it was still near impossible to accept that his past was just like a holotape popped into that Pip Boy on her arm.

_Rivet City._   

It made the most sense.  He came there alone and who would know if he was different?  Of course that assumed that there once was a man named Danse who grew up in the Capital Wasteland.  All he remembered might just be an elaborate fabrication. Sad thing was that the childhood he remembered was lonely but uneventful.  Couldn’t they have done better than that?

As if he didn’t hate being a synth enough already.

All he had left out of the life he thought belonged to him was what he believed. Those were things that he at least thought he’d come to believe on his own.  He believed in what the Brotherhood of Steel stood for with all his heart. Even if he was living and hypocritical proof that belief didn’t always lead to action.

He should have put a laser pistol to his own head and rid the world of another synth.

But he just couldn’t do it before; not sitting there alone waiting for the Brotherhood to hunt him down.  It felt like he had to give them the chance and the satisfaction to end him themselves for his betrayal.  Even if it wasn't his fault.  

At least that’s what he told himself.

When she took out the turrets and unlocked the door and didn't attack him, he didn’t know what to feel.  He was grateful and disappointed. He was so happy to see his true friend, someone who was maybe more, that he thought he might cry.

Danse heard himself apologize for existing.

He set his jaw and asked her to kill him.  He tried to hide everything else. The doubts, the will to survive, the burning sensation behind his ribs agonized him.  But she, contrary to her last breath, refused.  She stood between him and Maxson and defended him at the risk of her own life.   If The Elder hadn’t backed down, he was positive she would have killed Maxson, right then and there.

Danse didn’t know whether to be aroused or mortified.

She promised she’d be back for him and a part of him wished he didn’t want it.  She suggested he go to Sanctuary, but he wasn’t ready to face that little community just yet.  She’d taken him there more than once and he was not always kind.  Despite fighting alongside him with the Brotherhood, she was comfortable with exceptions to every rule.  She had no problems with the distinction between ferals and other ghouls, with Institute synths and free synths.  Which, he supposed, was exactly why he had all this time to think in circles until his head hurt. He had a headache like he’d never had before.

Did they program that in or was he actually alive in some way and pain was just part of that?

_Damn it. Circles inside of circles._

Danse put his elbows on his knees and cradled his forehead in his hand, rubbing his temples.  If he had to be a synth it would have been nice to not be this human.  

He heard her before he saw her, which he knew was by design.  She was more than capable of sneaking up on him, even in her Power Armor.  Those footsteps were hers and she’d left her armor outside.  She was careful, as always. She didn’t want a reception with weapons hot.  He didn’t want that either.  He felt his heart lurch in his chest.

Maybe it was a synthetic heart, but it still beat and it still reacted to her presence every time he saw her.  Hell, it reacted the first time he saw her.  When she barrelled between him and a feral ghoul at the Cambridge Police station he felt it. When she blew a hole through it with a shotgun, he felt it again.

_Admiration, right from the start._

Once he realized she was on his side, he couldn’t deny that her skill and passion aroused him.  It was strange since he’d never been that concerned about those sort of things. Not that he had no experience with sex but it was rarely a distraction.  Women and men were attracted to him and he was willing to accept attention. He just never took the time to chase after it himself.  He didn’t need to.  

Besides, the Brotherhood was his family, his partner, his lover.  He didn’t plan to have anything with just one person. Even with her, as much as she caught his attention, he didn’t let it go further than friendship.  The Brotherhood came first.  

The Brotherhood was lost to him now.  She was the only friend he had left.   His heart lurched again.

She stopped at the hole in the wall that served as a doorway. She leaned herself between the rebar and shattered concrete, legs crossed at the ankle.  Her arms folded across her chest.  She didn’t say a word.

All Danse could do was look at her.  

She smiled faintly and shook her head at him.  “Looks like I left you here alone too long. Did you forget how to talk?”

Danse shrugged and tried to be casual but his skin felt like it was the wrong size.  Words didn’t want to form in his mouth. She just kept smiling, her eyes soft when she looked at him.  She looked at him like he was a panicky animal.  That’s exactly what he felt like.

He looked at the floor.

Time passed. She seemed to give up waiting for him to reply and crossed the room.  She crouched down in front of him, that familiar sound of the fabric of her uniform crinkling.  There was a new, metallic sound to her movement.  He realized she was wearing his holotags along with hers around her neck.  They clinked together when she moved.

He finally got it together enough to lift his head and look at her again.  She made eye contact briefly before reaching up to pull his hood off his head.  He wore it out of habit.  He did a lot of things that way.

He was in uniform too. The orange and cream fabric was familiar, even if he knew he shouldn’t wear it any longer.  His brain almost started off on another tangent. Before he got far off track, she threaded her fingers through his hair at his temple. For a moment, he wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone his name.  He focused on her fingers, their warm pads soft against his skull.  Danse instinctively closed his eyes.  He told himself not to overthink what exactly defined instinct in a someone who was built in a lab.

Both hands touched him now, one on either side of his head.  He opened his eyes and found her face close to his. It was hard to breathe.  She was still smiling a little. Her eyes were watching her fingers and didn’t see him look up.  

He always made it a point to not look at her too closely before.  Detachment was all that kept him going some days.  He’d gotten attached to her despite his best efforts. Looking at her didn’t help.  

He couldn’t say whether she was beautiful in any objective sense, but he loved her face. He loved the little scars on her chin, the way her eyes always looked bruised.  He was transfixed by the haphazard freckles on the bridge of her nose and the tops of her cheekbones.

He felt a sudden surge of desire to kiss her, but he throttled it down.  That was ridiculous. He was a synth, not a man. A woman like this deserved an actual man, not a facsimile of one.  

He couldn’t remember a time he took initiative to be affectionate with someone in his entire life.  He accepted it the few times it had been bluntly offered but that was all.  It always felt so confusing.  

Made a lot more sense why he felt that way now.

Finally she made eye contact again, her head tilted to the side.  A little crease appeared between her eyebrows.  

“I still can’t believe it,” she said.  Her left hand slid forward until it was pressed against his cheek.  “I’ve seen synths right in the Institute.”  She paused, like she was going to add something else but then hesitated.  Her eyes clouded.  

She was debating if she could trust him.  He was good at reading people.  Didn’t matter why.

She cleared her throat.  “I know it’s supposed to matter.”  She snorted.  “Hell, you taught me it mattered, but I was never good at doing what I was told.”  She leaned forward and kissed his cheek.  “You’re human to me.”  She was close enough that he could feel her breath when she spoke.

He felt himself tense up and lean away from her.  “But I’m not human.  I’m not...I’m just technology gone too far.  I’m a machine.”

She dropped her hands onto her knees.  Every fiber of his being wanted her to put them back on his face.  His hands wanted to touch her, but he resisted.  She deserved better.

“If you were just a machine, would we even be having this conversation?”

He sighed and leaned back in the chair.  “I don’t know.  But wouldn’t it be a lot easier if I was human?”

She smirked but it was a bitter expression.  “You thought you were human before and you never let me get close then either.”

He couldn’t even look at her.  She was right.  He irritably ran his fingers over his eyebrow, feeling the bump of scar where the hair didn’t grow.  He remembered getting that scar.  A machine that could get scars. What the hell next?

“Danse,”  She sounded frustrated, annoyed, exasperated. He earned it.  She’d been here for five minutes and he was irritated with himself.  He always knew who he was and what he wanted and now he couldn’t even function.  But he was used to following orders and the way she said his name was an order if he ever heard one.  He turned his eyes back to her obediently.

“What?”  _Okay, so that didn’t sound obedient in the least._  

“What are you so afraid of?”

The words spilled out before he could stop them.  “I’ve had my entire identity wiped away! I came from nothing and now I’m nothing again.”  He shook his head and it made his temples throb.  “I had a plan. I knew what was right.  But for the first time since I joined the Brotherhood, I don’t have all the answers and it scares the hell out of me.”

She pursed her lips.  “You didn’t have them then either, Danse.”

“It felt like I did.”

She sighed and moved her hand from her own knee to his.  “Human machine or synth, none of us has all the answers. It doesn't matter how confident we are when we bluster through.  Maxson is just a man, younger than I was before the war.  He’s as fallible as the rest of us.  If he knew everything, you’d still be at his side, helping make the Commonwealth a better place.”

“Then he’d be a hypocrite just like I am.”

She pursed her lips.  “Why specifically are synths a problem? Tell me that.”

Danse rolled his eyes.  She knew this. “Because they are intended to replace human beings and sometimes they do.  Because they can malfunction.  Because they can be controlled.”

“Are you being controlled?”

“I don’t know.”  He didn’t know.  That scared him.

She squeezed his leg.  “You were reported lost; a runaway synth, Danse. Not on a mission. If the Institute could control you, they’d have you back.  But they can’t.  Someone erased that part of you.  You’re no more machine than I am now.”

Danse grit his teeth.  “But what if I malfunction and hurt someone?”

“We could all snap, any of us.  Maybe humans easier than you.” She sighed. “The Institute, the Railroad, the Minutemen; they are human. They are making more mistakes every minute.  It doesn’t take being born in a lab to fuck up.”

"Built."  His voice was snappish.  "Not born."

"Semantics."  

Danse sighed.  “Look, what do you want from me?”

“Nothing,” she said.  “Everything. I don’t know.”

“That’s helpful.”

She snorted.  “You aren’t the only one who gets to be confused.  I’m only human, after all.”

He started to speak.   _Not human. I’m not fucking human._ He never got the chance.  She grabbed him by the neck of his uniform and yanked herself against him.  She kissed him so hard he heard their teeth clack together.

He had no idea what to do.  

 


	2. Don't Let Go

He knew he should push her away.

Danse just couldn’t bring himself to do it.  He should just get the hell out of there. He should eat a bullet or fling himself into the Glowing Sea (not that it would matter, being a synth). Anything instead of what he actually did which was, of course, to grab her by the shoulders and kiss her back.

God, he wanted this.  He wanted it so much and he didn’t even understand how he could want anything.  But he didn’t want to think about that now.  He didn’t want to do anything but just hang on to her for dear life.

She pulled away, gasping for air like they’d just taken on a gang of supermutants.  Her hands were wrapped around his arms.  She was shaking.  

“Shit,” she muttered.  “I’m sorry.”  Her hands let loose.

Danse didn’t let go.  His hand flew out without even making a choice and fingers wrapped around her arm.

“No, wait.”  His heart felt like it no longer had any coherent rhythm.

She shook her head.  “I’m not going to take advantage of you.”

“You aren’t.”  He felt his fingers tighten around the small, fragile bones in her wrist.   “Nothing is real anymore.  I don’t know who I am but I feel closer to you than I have to anyone in my life.  All I have left is what I believe. And you.”

She looked at him.  It looked like she was trying to bore into his brain, suss out what was going on in there.  He wished her luck. He wasn’t sure and the thing was inside his head.

“You still believe all that?  That synths are just machines gone wrong? That ghouls are just freaks that need to be exterminated?”  She shook her head.  “Even after this?”

Danse swallowed.  “I have to.  It’s all I have.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed in irritation.  “It’s not.”  She opened her eyes again.  It looked like she wanted him to say something else, but he didn’t have anything she wanted to hear.  He wasn’t the exception to the rule, even in his own head.  He just kept going because he knew he could still do some good.  He could help save the people of the Commonwealth from themselves.  He couldn’t do that if he was dead.

Besides, she would kill him if he stepped out of line.  If he malfunctioned or some dormant programming sprung up and turned him into a monster she'd put a bullet in his head.  It was the only reason he didn’t take a bullet now.  At least that’s what he told himself.

When he didn’t say anything, she frowned hard.  “God, you’re fucking insufferable.”

Danse couldn’t help but smirk.  “I’ve been told that before.”

“I just don’t understand,” she said.  “Half the time I want to slap the shit out of you, but…” Her voice trailed off.

“But what?”  He quirked an eyebrow at her.

“ _But what?_   he asks." She mimicked his voice. "As if it isn’t completely obvious.”  She was blushing.  He wanted to kiss her again, but he resisted the urge.  Nothing here felt obvious to him.  It felt like he was standing naked on the edge of a cliff.  

“I really don’t know what you mean.” He’d never been good at any of this.  She kissed him, sure, but that didn’t mean much in the past.  

“Damn it Danse,” she said.  She looked down at his fingers wrapped around her wrist.  She moved her free hand over his, fingertips feather light over the bones in his hand.  Her fingers were cool as they walked over his calloused knuckles.  She looked up into his eyes.  “You’re my friend,” she said.  “And I wish you were more.”

He blinked at her.  “Are you saying you’re in love with me?”  

She smirked.  “You’re blunt as always,” she said.  “But yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”  She bit her lip.  “I’m…”  She paused and struggled a bit.  She set her palm down on the back of his hand.  Her skin felt clammy.  “I love you.”

The world tilted sideways.  It was one thing to know she was interested in having sex.  That’s what kissing had only ever been about before.  Danse didn’t have relationships; not even real friendships, not ones that didn’t involve the chain of command.  Not since Cutler died and even that was different. Cutler was his ersatz brother, a family to make up for the one he never had.  This was something else.  

He’d felt something for her since the start.  He’d given it lots of careful names; admiration, respect, trust.  Those weren’t easy to get from him as it was.  He never considered, never even entertained the idea that he was meant for other things.

 _Love. What did that even mean?_  He just sat there, silent, looking at her but didn't want to look away.  Everything felt strange.  His chest hurt.

“Can you be patient with me?” he asked.  He knew it wasn’t the right response, but he didn’t have a better one.  “I never let myself feel things.  Not even before.”

“I’ve been patient with you so far,” she said.  “It’s not going to change.”  She was trying to smile at him, but it looked forced.  This was the first time he’d ever seen her look scared.  They took out a Behemoth while hanging out of a vertibird.  She stepped into some untested piece of Institute tech and let herself be zapped into molecules. Then, she looked exhilarated.  Now, she looked like everything might come crashing down at any moment.  

He understood exactly how she felt.

He squeezed her wrist.  “I’m not sure I know what love is,” he admitted.  “But I know you’re the only person I’ve ever known that wanted to find out for.” He chuckled and shook his head.  “Damn that sounded awkward.”  But it felt good to say it, even if it was confusing.  

She laughed too.  That felt even better.

“I do know one thing I want,” he continued.  It felt even better to admit that.  He did want this.  He wanted her.  But he wanted more than just the pleasurable release of sex.  He wanted to be as close to her as he could get.   

“What’s that?”  

He replied by kissing her.  Danse couldn’t remember another point in his life that he’d initiated touching someone, but it felt right.  Her arms came up around his neck.  He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her up into his lap.  The touch of her body against him made his blood feel hot.  Every nerve was aroused.  The gentle pressure of her fingers at the base of his skull was as erotic as anything he’d felt before.  He wanted to show her just how important she was to him, make her feel a moment of pleasure amidst all this goddamn pain. He wanted her to make him feel like he was human.

Her fingers were in his hair when she leaned back to look at him.  “Are you sure you want this?”

Danse nodded.  “It may be the only thing I’m sure about right now.”  He smiled.  “At least this is something I know how to do.”

Her mouth curved up on one side and her eyes narrowed.  “Oh really?”

He couldn’t help but grin at her.  She made him feel better.  For a full two seconds he forgot he was a synth.  Maybe he could stretch that out a bit further.  He slipped his arm under her knees and stood up.  

“I’ll show you.”

“Well thank fuck,” she laughed as he carried her towards the makeshift bed he’d thrown together.  “I’ve wanted this for a long time.”

With her in his arms and everything blown to hell already, it finally felt safe enough to tell her.  “Me too.”

She nuzzled her face into his neck.  He just tried to focus on walking.  He managed to get the whole fifteen steps across the room and tumbled them both down onto the nest of blankets and pillows.  Before, he’d never much cared where he slept, but he needed some sort of comfort right now.  His resolve was shot to hell anyway. He gave himself that much.  He was glad he’d given in.  He was glad to give in to all of it.

She lay there beside him, her head cradled in his pillow, looking at him in a way no one had ever looked at him before.  He was used to respect and deference and even lust sometimes, but this was something else.  He never wanted her to stop.  

He kissed her again.  He felt her fingers fumbling at the buckle and the zipper at his neck.  She was dexterous, because she had them both undone before he even had the sense of mind to do anything to help.  He might be a synth, but clearly a raging erection was no less distracting to him.  She got the zipper down to his waist and her hand slipped inside.  Her fingers slid through the coarse hair on his belly and up his chest.  She made a pleased sound into his mouth.

She was pushing his uniform off his shoulders before he managed to do anything, and that was only to help shimmy his arms out of the tight sleeves. He flipped on to his back once his arms were free.  She swung a leg over him and straddled his waist, just slightly higher than where he wanted her.  Unthinking, he grabbed her hips pushed her back.  The friction made him squeeze his eyes shut.  He heard his own agonized intake of breath.

She snickered and moved back too far until she was perched over his thighs.

“Whoa there soldier,” she grinned.  “Don’t rush it.”

Danse throttled back the growl that was threatening.  He wasn’t as good at patience as he hoped she’d be. He closed his eyes instead and took another deep breath, trying to get hold of his self control. He hadn’t even stopped inhaling when she touched him again.  Fingertips right above where she’d stopped with the zipper.  Close enough to the head of his cock that it took everything he had to not buck his hips and make those devilish little fingers do what he wanted them to.

“I usually have more self control,” he said, his voice strained, though not as comically as the front of his uniform surely was.  

Her smile crept across her lips, slow and sly.  “I’m a bad influence.”  She moved back until she was kneeling between his knees instead, tugging at what was left of his clothes and his sanity.  She jerked her chin at him and he complied, lifting his hips up so she could get his uniform and his briefs off.  She paused to unlace his boots.  First one, then the other.  She was going slow on purpose, he was sure of it.

She finally got his boots on the floor, his uniform flung haphazardly across the room.  She gave him a sly look through her eyelashes as she took off her own boots.  She undid the buckle at her neck and unzipped the top of her uniform, but only enough that he could see a hint of shadowed cleavage.  She toyed with the zipper, considering.  Then she stopped, dropping her hands on to his ankles on either side of her hips.  As much as he wanted to get her as naked as he was, it gave him a perverse thrill.  For as long as they’d known one another, he was her superior. But now, she was the boss.  It looked good on her.

Her hands ran up his legs, massaging, flexing over his tense calves.  Her whole body had the attitude of a contented sigh as her palms skidded up over his knees and along the ropy muscles in his thighs.  He could feel the pressure of her hands increase as she shifted her weight forward.  He felt her breath ghost over him.  He nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt the delicate touch of her lips against his inner thigh.

She giggled.  He wanted to be mad; he hated being laughed at.  But he couldn’t.  He loved the sound of her laughter.

He felt her cheek next, soft and warm.  She rubbed her face up over the arch of his thigh like a cat.  The warm exhalation of her breath made his cock twitch.  He felt her smile right before he felt the tip of her tongue.  He tried to gasp but couldn’t get any air into his lungs.  She shifted again, one hand coming up to cradle his balls.  Her fingers wrapped around the base of his cock, angling it up away from his body.  She twisted her head, her hair brushing almost too softly against his skin.  The momentary tickle distracted him just long enough for her to drag her lips over the head of his cock.

He made an involuntary sound. He felt like he’d been shot.  His head swum.

Danse had enjoyed plenty of sex back when he was a Knight and there were plenty of others that shared his rank.  But this was different.  It wasn’t some frantic adrenaline infused tumble.  Her every touch was calculated, deliberate.  

Her head moved.  Slowly.  Too slow, lips smooth and damp against his skin.  The head of his cock bumped the back of her mouth and he felt the contractions of her throat as she swallowed.  She moved back just as slowly.  The cool air hit his damp skin.  She paused, pressing a ridiculous chaste kiss to the tip of his cock.  Her fingers squeezed and his erection throbbed helplessly in response.

“Oh god...fuck,” he muttered, not capable of anything sensible, or anything vaguely decent.  He was stupidly hard, painfully hard.  His chest ached and he couldn’t breathe right.

She only smiled, smug as hell.

She rolled her shoulders and looked him right in the eye.  “Want more?”

He grunted, hunted for a word. _Yes? No?_ He didn’t even know.  

She laughed again.  “Well, let’s just see what happens.”

She swirled her tongue over the head of his cock, licked her lips.  She hummed appreciatively and slipped her lips over him again.  The ring of her fingers tightened on the base of his cock.  This time she moved a little faster, taking him only half way before sliding back again.  Her mouth made a disjointed, infuriating rhythm.  Slow then faster;  the pressure tight and then feather soft.  Danse thought his head was going to explode.  A vein pulsed in his temple.

This time he did manage to do something.  He sat up awkwardly and grabbed at her shoulders. At first she only responded by moving her tongue over him inside her mouth, fingers squeezing again.  It felt like forever before she turned her eyes up to look at him, the head of his cock still in her mouth.

She looked like she was going to eat him alive.

_What a way to go._

Danse had to have her.  His patience was gone.  He’d never taken initiative before.  He’d fucked, sure, but he just went with the flow.  He took orders.  Once he was a Paladin and starting giving orders in the rest of his life, he stopped having sex.  He hadn’t ever reconciled the two.

Today was a good day to start.

He grabbed her upper arms and pulled.  With a squeak she found herself dragged up on to his chest for a heartbeat before he flipped her on to her back.  He wasn’t subtle like she was.  Maybe he could learn, but his head was spinning and his balls were screaming at him.  He pulled the zipper of her uniform down  with a buzz and yanked it off her shoulders.  He buried his face in her neck and bit at the triangle of muscle that lead to her shoulder.  She arched up against him, letting him pull her arms out of her sleeves and shove the rest of the fabric down.  He tucked his foot into the bunched up fabric and with a kick got it down to her knees.  

She wasn’t smirking now.  Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wild.  Her lower lip was caught between her teeth.  He moved his leg again and got one of hers free, the rest of it still stuck of her other leg.

Close enough.

He grabbed her bare leg and pulled her close. He hadn’t managed to get her panties off, but the worn cotton was damp when he pressed his cock between her legs.  He couldn’t wait.  All he could do was reach between them to shift the offending fabric out of the way and bury his cock in her.

It almost didn’t register that she wrapped her leg around his waist.  He had his forehead resting against hers, panting hard, afraid to move.  If he moved, this was going to be over before it started.  How long had it been? Years? Five? More?  He didn’t even know.

She whispered his name.  Arching her neck, she kissed the corner of his mouth.

“I love you, Danse,” she said.  “Now fuck me.”

He couldn’t say no to her.

His hips snapped forward hard enough to shift them, knocking the straw pillows off the little mattress.  Had it been a real bed he would have knocked it into the wall hard enough to punch a hole.  He moved without thinking and the tiny part of his brain that was still functioning wondered if he was going to hurt her.  But she was egging him on, her heel dug into the meat of his thigh, ragged fingernails digging into his back.

It hit him like running into a wall.  His cock throbbed.  He pushed himself as close as he could physically get, heart hammering in his chest as he spilled inside of her.  Danse collapsed down on top of her, fighting to catch his breath.  She held him tight.

His heartbeat wouldn’t slow down.  He clung to her.  He didn’t want to let go.

He had enough sense to shift to the side so she could breathe and she moved with him.  She kept her hips pressed up against his. She didn’t want to let go either.  His lips were right against her ear when he whispered.

“Is this what love feels like?” he asked.

She moved her head back just enough to look at him.  The expression on her face was serious for a heartbeat, but then she smirked.

“That,” she said, smug even as she still tried to catch her breath.  “Was an incredible orgasm.”  She tried to smile but it faded into a frown.  “Only you can know if it’s love.  I can’t answer that.”

His heart was still hammering in his chest when he kissed her again.  He tried to pour everything he was feeling into that long, soft kiss.  He didn’t know how to express it with words, but he was going to try.

“I think so,” he said.  “I really do.”

She smiled crookedly.  “I hope so.”


End file.
